Barbarians

From Lazer

Barbarians gives a more well rounded view of the European and Middle Eastern world in the 500 BC to 500 AD time period. This comparison is made between the common history of the same time period, where the common history mostly gives only the Roman perceptive. The first two sections of this book really gained my attention, but the last section had a hard time holding my interest. Even though I have had little research of the Roman time period outside of one World History classes in College, I had no trouble understanding the information in the book.

I enjoyed learning about the lifestyle of the Celtic, Germans, and Greeks, but was depressed when their culture was erases by the Romans.

Celtic

The Barbarians book is very informative in showing how life was like for all groups of people in the 5th century BC to 5th century AD in Europe.

The book shows that if a civilizations achievements are not documented and well publicized they would be lost for future generations. For example the Celtic calendar, which was as useful as the present day calendar, was invented in the 1st century BC, but was not carried on to future generations. A calendar with the same usefulness was not recreated again until the end of the 16th century. Another example was the corn harvesting machine that was made by the Celtic people but was lost to future generations. The Celtic people's technologies and life styles were mostly lost because of Roman armies destroying their entire cities and then building on top of them.

This book shows that the Roman civilization was not the most civilized, most technological, or richest civilization of its time. The Celtic people had far fairer laws in favor of all the individuals in their civilization compared to the Romans. In Roman law, women were processions of the men, in that they could not own any procession and had no rights. In Roman law, if a women was abused or harmed the women could not bring charges against that person. The man that own the women could only bring charges against a person in the same way that if someone damaged their land or home. In the Celtic laws women were equal to the men in all ways. Women could own property, rule others, fight in their countries armies, and divorce their parters. In Celtic laws, women kept their share of the property that they came into a marriage with.

The Celtic population was found to have many riches. Their was found large gold mines that allowed them to have many types gold jewelry.

Germans

The Germans in the 5th century BC to 5th century AD were a large collection of small tribal group. They did not have permanent housing they lived in more a temporary shelter with some livestock. The Germans did not have the idea of wealth, meaning one family was not seen as better off than another. The families all had the same kind of living quarters, clothes, and items. Their culture was one that they tried to earn respect from their community from having large diners and helping out others.

The Germans had a macho type of idea about war. Where the benefits of armor and improved weaponry was thought of not being manly enough. When the Germans went to battle they had wooden spears, wicker shields, and barely wearing a shirt. The German fighting technique was an individual type. Where they were not like the Romans that were organized in attack and defense.

The Romans did not find much use in fighting with the Germans, because they did not have much wealth. The Romans did want to used the land that the Germans had and use the German people for slaves. The German people did fight off the Romans by finding a leader that had training from the Roman army. This leader organized the German armies to fight as one.